E Z Kitty Named Washington's Horse of Year

Bruce and Cass Maller's Highlander Racing Stables mare E Z Kitty took home 2013 Horse of the Year honors at the Washington champions annual awards banquet held Feb. 22 at Emerald Downs in Auburn, Wash.

In addition to the top honor, the 5-year-old daughter of He's Tops was named champion older filly or mare and top turf performer after winning five stakes races at Emerald Downs and Turf Paradise in Arizona.

Bred by Jerry and Peggy Woods at their Woodstead Farm in Chehalis, E Z Kitty was also the top-earning Washington-bred performer of 2013 with $183,026 collected from her 13 starts, including six wins. She was trained by Jeffrey Metz, 2013 special racing achievement winner, for the last 10 months of her career. That span included a win in the 2014 New Year's Day Kachina Handicap at Turf Paradise. E Z Kitty is now in Kentucky scheduled to be bred to Exchange Rate.

E Z Kitty is the third offspring of He's Tops, a son of the great Seattle Slew, to earn state Horse of the Year honors, following No Giveaway (2005) and Reba Is Tops (2009). He's Tops was bred by prominent Seattle businessman Herman Sarkowsky.

Older horse and gelding honors went to stakes winner and Longacres Mile (gr. III) runner-up Stryker Phd, a 4-year-old son of Bertrando who races for Jim and Mona Hour.

Stryker Phd's 3-year-old half-sister Madame Pele, by Salt Lake, earned the championship title in her division for Zach and Beth Correa's Kama'aina Thoroughbreds.

Michael and Amy Feuerborn's three-time stakes-winner Chu and You, a full sister to 2011 champion 2-year-old male Chu and I, was named the champion 2-year-old filly. The filly's pensioned sire, You and I, is at Old Friends horse retirement facility in Kentucky.

Karl Krieg's homebred Absolutely Cool, Washington's champion handicap horse of 2012, returned to the races to add the 2013 sprinter of the year title.

In addition to Metz, special racetrack achievement awards went to trainer Robert Baze, who conditions Chu and I, and 2008 Washington Horse of the Year Wasserman, who retired last year at age 11 as Emerald Downs' leading earner. Howard Belvoir's homebred Wasserman will now serve as a Washington racing goodwill ambassador.

Nico Sauve' was named Washington plater of the year and Skyribbon received the most improved plater trophy.

Other horse awards were earned by Parker's Storm Cat as the state's leading sire by purse money (for the third consecutive year); Nationhood, top first-crop sire by earnings; and Julia Rose, broodmare of the year and dam of state champions Noosa Beach and Music of My Soul.

Frederick and Debbie Pabst's Blue Ribbon Farm earned their third straight breeder of the year title and Karl and Darlyne Krieg were the state's top owners of Washington-bred earners for the second year.

The WHBPA/WTBOA Special Recognition Award was given to Sue Spooner of Olympia in recognition of her contributions to the Washington Thoroughbred racing industry.